You have to feel a little bad for the Xbox 360. Barely three months after its launch and the only thing anyone seems interested in is the surprising success of Geometry Wars. Meanwhile, two systems that won’t come out for months (by the best estimates) get all the press attention.

As it always was, as it ever shall be.

The rumor mill on the two remaining systems of the ubiquitous “Next Generation” has been going overtime in the past few days and weeks. This is especially true for Sony’s Playstation 3. First came the previously discussed Kikizo article with purported “hands-on” dev kit impressions. This was quickly followed up by a Sony survey that seems to confirm some of the HDTV and storage features the Kikizo article cast in doubt.

Then a bombshell article yesterday from Next Generation revealed information from anaonymous Sony sources about a September launch and integrated online system named HUB. This was followed quickly by a story this morning quoting a Sony executive saying the launch date had not been decided.

Meanwhile the always-reliable* Spong already found a list of launch titles for an October U.S launch, though they say the system won’t launch in Europe until March 2007 according to “SCEE documentation leaked last week and independently corroborated by two publishing sources.” Further meanwhile, analysts are predicting a delay and 1up is talking about a “disparity of information that developers seemed to have regarding Sony’s PS3 and the new online strategy.”

What to make of all this? First, that readers and journalsits are all voracious for any scrap of information or speculation about what is still a very secretive launch. Second, that all this coverage points to the great job Sony is doing at defending the Playstation 3’s generally accepted position as the system to beat this generation.

Third, that no one has any idea what’s actually going to happen.

As it always has been ,as it ever shall be.

* - Not actually always-reliable (back to article)